Quick Links - Poets.org

follow poets.org

Search form

The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

sign up

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, on November 11, 1973, Chris Hosea earned a BA in English and AmericanlLiterature from Harvard College. He then went on to receive his MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Exactly a century ago, the Armory Show brought European avant-garde art to New York. We are still experiencing its consequences. Among the works on view was Marcel Duchamp’s notorious Nude Descending a Staircase, which a derisive critic wanted to rename, “Explosion in a Shingle Factory.” Both titles come to mind as one reads Chris Hosea’s Put Your Hands In, which somehow subsumes derision and erotic energy and comes out on top. Maybe that’s because “poetry is the cruelest month," as he says, correcting T.S. Eliot. Transfixed in mid-paroxysm, the poems also remind us of Samuel Beckett’s line (in Watt): “The pain not yet pleasure, the pleasure not yet pain.” One feels plunged in a wave of happening that is about to crest.

Hosea is also the author of Double Zero (Prelude, 2016). He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

New Make

what comes next ispossible to theorize oneperiod emerging nowexplore late ailmentssee shells or pounds of ruleralso a lecture at Choatespurred her ken for newnests that break icegot the germ of moribund stylewhat is it that Joe wantsto free poetry fromdeliberate space of wailconveys a need for hugsone more future among nonenot quite forgotten noweasy to get heated at a lecternafter drinking television looksbetter be stumping for easethat offspring will steallike lovely stickers peeledfrom white shapes that heldtells you she was born builtas much as born to slipinto a car driven by a diveryou and she do not yetperceive as form critique allowsfor just some laughter not wastepretense unforgiven hidden patienceevery tentative second awaiting busesmeans you are wantedlike a wanted man is wantedeyes deliberate blur past posters would Ilick off your lipstick and rouge

As we unlocked itthere was nothingin the safeI wantedto embracesomeone thereso intent to recordall we sawpaying attention meantforgettingeveryonebut yousexyat that age or later ona kind of stageyour solitudea fictive